Competency tests ordered in Jewish site shootings

Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., also known as Frazier Glenn Cross Jr., is wheeled into the courtroom for a preliminary hearing Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2014, at the Johnson County Courthouse in Olathe, Kan. Miller is charged with capital murder in the April 13 attacks outside the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and a Jewish retirement home in nearby Overland Park, Kan. (AP Photo/The Kansas City Star, Tammy Ljungblad)(Photo: Tammy Ljungblad, AP)

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — An avowed white supremacist accused in the fatal shooting of three people at two Jewish sites in Kansas was ordered to undergo mental testing Wednesday, prompting him to accuse the judge of violating his right to a speedy trial.

Frazier Glenn Miller, 73, of Aurora, Missouri, is charged with capital murder in the attacks outside a Jewish community center and a nearby retirement home on April 13, the eve of Passover. None of the victims was Jewish.

Johnson County Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan said Miller's attorneys indicated during a closed-door meeting that their client was having trouble assisting with "various aspects" and that a competency determination needs to be made. The judge scheduled a Dec. 18 hearing to discuss the results of the evaluation.

The move delays a preliminary hearing set to determine if there is enough evidence to take Miller's case to trial. Miller pushed back, saying that dragging out the case would help the prosecutor get re-elected.

"I want a speedy trial," he said, telling the judge he objected to what was happening. "Why 30 days? Why not a week?"

Ryan told him he could discuss the issue with his defense team.

Miller is accused of killing Dr. William Lewis Corporon, 69, and his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, who were at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City for a singing contest audition.

He also is accused of fatally shooting 53-year-old Terri LaManno, who was visiting her mother at a Jewish retirement home in nearby Overland Park.

Miller shouted "heil Hitler" at television cameras as he was arrested after the killings.

Miller's attorney, Ron Evans, has said Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe had indicated he plans to seek the death penalty — something Howe has not publicly acknowledged.

Evans is with the Kansas Death Penalty Defense Unit and had sought to push back the preliminary hearing, but Miller told the judge on Oct. 31 that he didn't want to wait.

Miller, also known as Frazier Glenn Cross, is a Vietnam War veteran from southwest Missouri who founded the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in his native North Carolina and later the White Patriot Party.

He was the target of a nationwide manhunt in 1987, when federal agents tracked him and three other men to a rural Missouri home stocked with hand grenades and automatic weapons. He was indicted on weapons charges and accused of plotting robberies and the assassination of the Southern Poverty Law Center's founder. He served three years in federal prison.

Miller also ran for the U.S. House in 2006 and the U.S. Senate in 2010 in Missouri, each time espousing a white-power platform.